The New Testament Witness to Christ and His Kingdom, Mentor's Guide, MG13

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T H E N E W T E S T A M E N T W I T N E S S T O C H R I S T A N D H I S K I N G D O M

A P P E N D I X 3 8

Readings on Messianic Prophecy Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis

Rudolph Bultmann and the Predictions of Passion and Resurrection

And how would Jesus have conceived the relation of his return as Son of Man to his present historical activity ? He would have had to count upon being removed from the earth and raised to heaven before the final End, the irruption of God’s Reign, in order to come from there on the clouds of heaven to perform his real office. But how would he have conceived his removal from the earth? As a miraculous translation ? Among his sayings there is no trace of any such fantastic idea. As departure by natural death , then? Of that, too, his words say nothing. By a violent death, then ? But if so, could he count on that as an absolute certainty–as the consciousness of being raised to the dignity of the coming Son of Man would presuppose? To be sure, the predictions of the passion (Mark 8.31; 9.31; 10.33-34; cf. 10.45; 14.21, 41) foretell his execution as divinely foreordained. But can there be any doubt that they are all vaticinia ex eventu ? Besides, they do not speak of his parousia! And the predictions of the parousia (Mark 8.38; 13.26-27; 14.62; Matt. 24.27, 37, 44) on their part, do not speak of the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. Clearly the predictions of the parousia originally had nothing to do with the predictions of death and resurrection; i.e., in the sayings that speak of the coming of the Son of Man there is no idea that this Son of Man is already here in person and must be removed by death before he can return from heaven.

Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament . Vol. 1. Trans. Kendrick Grobel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951. pp. 29-30

Modern Biblical Interpretation: Not What Happened but What Did the Church Preach?

Now it is true that in the predictions of the passion the Jewish concept Messiah-Son-of-Man is re-interpreted–or better, singularly enriched–insofar as the idea of a suffering, dying, rising Messiah or Son of Man was unknown to Judaism. But this reinterpretation of the concept was done not by Jesus himself but by the Church ex eventu. Of course, the attempt is made to carry the idea of the suffering Son of Man back into Jesus’ own outlook by assuming that Jesus regarded himself as Deutero-Isaiah’s Servant of God who suffers and dies for the sinner, and fused

Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament . Vol. 1. p. 31